The Soloution

End the rating system. Replace it with this system.

Level 1.

Basic pay.

Island owners= 5,000 per week because they pay 200 bucks a month

Lifetime Members=2000 per week.

Yearly memberships=1,500 per week

6 month memberships=1000 per week

Quarterly Memberships= 750 per week

monthly memberships=500 per week

Lifetime 9.95 dollar members= 250 per week.

Level 2.

general bonus

10 lindens per hour for every hour you are in Second Life. This way it will reward those who stay in world and can be a cushion for those who do not get large weekly payments.

This is the soloution.

Presented by Magnum Serpentine.

Why not just 'End the rating system' -- I think your payout schedule may be a solution looking for a problem.. I don't see what problem it's trying to solve.. why the payout?

Siggy.

What about quarterly?

Ummm, the reasons for the changes are to take more money out of the economy, not flood it with more.

I forgot about the quarter let me edit it above

Again, the discision has to take into account the current budget and economical indicators of where we are headed with immediate results of the new Economical System and a valuation of future indicators relevant to the direction of Surplus an or growth exponentials.

From making washing machines and tombstones and going broke in the process I know people need currency to buy things. The weekly total is a paycheck. The bonus is to reward those who stay on in here. Now second life has a good system that boots people for inactivity and as far as I have found there is no way to use the ole Kymer stay alive program. And even if they did come up with one (Members that is) it would be easy to code it out.

people having no money to buy things (And I am refering to those like myself who try and still do not succeed very well) need some source of income to afford things. It basically rewards people for how much money you spent on your memberships 225 dollars is a lot of money even if it is just one time.

Um... I vote for licensing requirements for thesaurus ownership.

First of all, there are very few people who own an island sized estate. then there are very few people who have life time accounts of the high dollar level. there are a few more who have yearly accounts and it goes down from there. If you want more money to spend on the products of the economy then upgrade your membership.

I believe my system will work. For those of you who are afraid of putting more currency into the world, consider the Worldsaway worlds of the old Virtual World worldsaway. They receave 60T an hour for every hour they are in. Their economy has not imploded.

I predict that the money will not remain in the hands of the people for long. They will go spend it. And as I said there are very few people who have the highest memberships so their high paychecks will not effect the economy.

The Soloution has been presented. It will work.

Magnum

Ok I'm following -- But we have a stipend for this at the moment..
There is the lil dwell bonus for having people hang out..
There will still be linden supported educational events.

So why do we need a payout simply for 'existing'? - especially when 'a 50% reduction in the weekly bonus attached to the stipend' isn't the 1000lb safe falling from the sky that I think it's being made out to be.

Siggy.

there was a time in the history of the United States that merchandise sat on the shelves and people had no money to afford it.

It was called the Great Depression.

And this relates to the current state of affairs in SL how?

Mags - just making some broad sweeping statement doesn't make it so - if you wish to say that SL is going into a great depression - then you will have to back that up with some kind of argument - or even some type of empirical evidence to show it.


There was a time when peoples faces busted out in pustules and they dropped dead.

It was called the black plague.


(looks around - Nope folks are still alive!)

Siggy.

Most people do not get enought money by the present paycheck system. 50 lindens for basic players will not go very far. End the bonus as we know it and they will have about 75-100 lindens a week. Most items are priced well above that. Thus as in the Great Depression, merchandise will set on the shelves and people will do a lot of window shopping.

My soloution provides a minimun 250 Lindens a week for basic players with the 10 lindens an hour bonus, this will be enought for the basic player to afford most items on the shelf.

Suppose retailers drop their prices to match the new, lower levels of income?

And I'm no historian nor economist, so how did the U.S. recover from The Great Depression, by the way?

The Second World War began, sparking a massive need for war materials.

While WW2 accelerated the end of the Depression, many historians and economists argue that the recovery actually began back in 1936 in the US if not prior to that. FDR's New Deal socialism programs were a major factor, but certainly not the only factor.

And I say they are not 'ending the bonus' - they are cutting the smallest part - the weekly delta - by 50%.

Which for me isn't very much at all. I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill - but even that said Mohammad moved the mountain.

Siggy.

I like this idea, the only thing, is that I can soooo see people staying online afk for hours at a time. Perhaps, the hour is only counted when the avie is active, i.e. chatting and moving, not just idle.

Also, what about, a tierd system that makes it so the more money you make by selling stuff the less stipend you get? For example, if you sell nothing, you get 750, but if you sell 10000, you get nothing, and everything in between? This would allow the Lindens to still give a stipend to the people that rely on Lindens as their main income, while still saving money by making it a tiered system.

Just a thought, feel free to flame it as desired hehe

I have a hard time believing that this proposal has been rationally developed. Whenever someone proposes a system under which they suddenly gain the maximum benefit, I tend to suspect that their intentions are not pure.

Let's consider what you've proposed, starting with the hourly pay scheme. Let's be succinct: You're wrong. Any time you link monetary gain to something like activity, it can and will be abused. Every single game/community online suffers from this same problem. For example, EQ2 is currently facing massive currency devaluation because people have been using macros to quickly and cheaply obtain funds. The system will be defrauded.

A yearly paying member who abuses the system and remain logged in for more than half of the week will earn L$6000 per month for level 1 stipend and an additional L$4000 per month for remaining logged in 50% of the time. At current GOM exchange rates, this amounts to ~40 dollars every month, without any real effort. Though methods exist to effortlessly generate revenue under the current stipend system, it requires many alts and a lot of initial setup. The system which you suggest is one in which even a casual user will likely end up receiving more cash than he pays per month. I don't even want to address the ridiculously gratuitous payout which you're suggesting LL give to lifetime members. As members who no longer pay anything into LL for base fees, this system extremely favors such users, to the detriment of LL's bottom line.

I agree with most of what Ardith posted. The parts I don't agree with I can't articulate well and are minor ones.

Per Robin's latest post:

Bonus amounts paid out as weekly 'Stipend Ratings' will be decreased over the next several months, beginning next week.

Philip also said in the thread about zeroing the ratings:

+ Another issue is do we want to wait until there are no more incentives (ratings bonuses), so that there is no money-related incentive to rate, however small. Again, we have this option to wait because of the database.

This would lead me (and others) to think that they are going to be taking away all of the ratings based bonuses over time. I don't even know if our assumption that just the Weekly Delta will be halfed as opposed to the the whole bonus (including total) that is given weekly.

Some people, not all, are making L$1500 a week from their weekly rating bonus (L$750 from the total rating and L$750 from the weekly rating). Not everyone gets this much, though. I have been in for seven months and usually get L$75 for total rating and L$75-200 for weekly rating.

With the phase out of the ratings based bonuses, we are back to "salary" only of L$500 or L$50 per week depending on membership level.

Magnum's proposal addresses this loss of income for the basic folks by offering a livable increase. At L$250, they can afford to rent a place, buy some clothes and pay to get into events.

For those of us who pay monthly, he gives us back a little of what we lost and an additional bonus due to our giving LL real US$.

Is it the greatest plan ever? No. The dollar amounts should be tweaked and the time logged in payout can be gamed, so I would not vote for that bit of it.

But it is a good plan and one that, if LL had asked for suggestions first, would probably have been seriously considered.

Second Life has a system that boots people after 30 minutes of inactivity. And if someone writes a program to keep them on line, its easy to write one that counters their stay alive program.

I have thought this out. The system would look like this.

This is an example, not real numbers

Island owners

25 people own islands. They pay 200 bucks a month in land fees. therefore they get 5000 lindens per week as a paycheck.

lifetime members

50 people are lifetime members. They receave 2000 a week as a paycheck.

Paying 225 for some is a very costly experience. Besides there are few lifetime members and the economy would not be effected because so few would receave the top pay levels.

yearly members

700 are yearly members and receave 1500 a week as a paycheck.

6 month members

4,500 are 6 month members and would receave 1000 as a paycheck

quarterly members

19,500 are quarterly members and would receave 750 as a paycheck

Monthly members

590,000 are monthly members and would receave 500 a week as a paycheck

one time pay lifetime 9.95

6 million members are of this group and would receave 250 a week as a paycheck.

Everyone would get 10 lindens an hour for being on line. Techonology and TOS statements would keep people from using stay alive programs and thus after 30 minutes of inactivity or use of a stay alive program you would get booted. If you were just inactive you would be able to come right back but the clock would be re-set for you. If you used a stay alive you would face suspension of your account.

As things are now. people who pay 9.95 will receave their 50 linden a week paycheck and maybe 10 to 50 in bonus. Items on the shelf cost more than this. This will lead to a depression.

Very few people would receave the top level pay and due to cost and the fact that Lifetime 225 us dollar accounts are no longer sold the most a normal member would get is 1500.

There is nothing but economic cost stopping people from moving to the island status but that economic cost would counter the 5000 that group would receave.

People say cost will come down. I say they will go up. At least the soloution will give people a better standing economically.

And by the way. In the old Virtural world of Worldsaway people receave 60 T an hour for being on line. And that virtual world's economy has not imploded.

More welfare is the wrong way to go. If anything the new player should start off with some funds whilke the older players get cut off as they become more established.

Paying people to spend time in the game is absurd.